the elephant in the room
In my life, I don’t willingly consume or buy animal products, if possible. Because the ideas around that especially online are rancid, I usually try not to advertise it much. The other people who have thicker skin and love to argue can do that all day if it makes them happy, I would rather do something else.
I guess it’s sad that I have to be careful about it, because if we look at it objectively, that’s just someone who eats or does things differently than you, and a ton of people around you are the same - they just make different decisions about their life and body. Still, I think it’s pretty telling that when we talk about negative experiences around the topic of veganism, my experiences happen at the dinner table, in restaurants, in the office, and online; meanwhile what most non-vegan people can serve up on why it is bad is some hot take they saw on Twitter. I don’t know, that just proves to me it cannot be that much of an issue if your one point is about a random person on the online vitriol for profit site that was either genuinely bad or trolling.
And of course, we love making questionable people famous for entertainment, no matter what it is about - harsh opinions, disrespect, weird stunts, scams, unproven claims and lies. I feel like with many popular vegan people online, the same thing happens, but also because it’s convenient to elevate someone who proves the worst stereotypes right and makes you feel justified. I see it too when oppressive groups highlight the worst examples of some group of marginalized people to justify their behavior and pretend all are the same. It’s the same mechanism and it sucks.
I don’t know, I am just not that online and I am not on social media, so I just don’t see many of the things that get thrown around or referenced. That means, to me, the source people pull from are toxic bubbles online and people that are not arguing in good faith. What does that have to do with me, my lifestyle, or a global movement or an ethical stance? I don’t care what the few individuals you come across who are online-poisoned are doing or saying. I feel like if you cannot go outside and find someone with that view and it isn’t something the large majority of that group would get behind and put on the biggest websites of that movement, it’s silly to pretend that’s a view innate to that 1. You just talked with a clown, it happens.
I don’t have all the answers, of course. I just do what works for me and my body so far and what I think is right. I get confronted with the fact that harvesting plants also harms animals and humans. That’s correct. But when I look on plates, most people are omnivorous and eat both animal products and plants. That means most people have both the plant and animal based human and animal rights abuses in their life on the plate, I just have one of them. I cannot prevent suffering, I can just reduce what I partake in.
Many people can reduce or even cut out animal products and eat plant-based without harm to their health, meanwhile an all-carnivore diet is more complicated - meat can be difficult for digestive disorders and bowel diseases, heart diseases, people with rheumatoid arthritis and so on. Issues on a plant-based diet usually arise from malnutrition due to lack of calories or a lack of specific nutrients, and both can be relatively easily solved in privileged Western countries - eating more, calorie drinks, choosing specific foods we have access to, adding a multivitamin or something prescribed by a doctor. I can change a lot about what plant foods I consume - how processed, where it’s from, organic or not, high in histamines or not. I can even plant and harvest it myself if I wanted to. But with animal products, I cannot change much about it and its properties that can be illness inducing or worsening and I am bound to what is sold to me.
So even from just this standpoint alone, I think it’s easier for me to cut out animal products to reduce my sponsorship of suffering on earth than if I just kept eating an omnivorous or carnivorous diet.
It’s also not a hard limit - if you think there are unethical or environmentally bad plant foods, you can cut them out also. Usually people bring up almonds, coffee, chocolate, avocado, and soybeans. It’s fair to critique those. But I wasn’t aware that non-vegan people don’t consume those. Why would it be a point against veganism if you are probably consuming these anyway? Either way, none of them are staple foods you truly need, and for some you can pay attention to where they come from. If you care about soy and the Amazon forest, your best bet is to stop eating beef, since most soy is fed to them, or buy brands that procure soy from elsewhere. Soy can be sourced from Europe or Asia, too.
I sometimes think it might be a fundamental difference in how food is perceived where I live vs. places like the US. I notice that US food is very brand/product based. When I see “What I eat in a day” videos from there, a lot is “I eat (brand), then (brand), then I had a bowl of (brand)” and if that’s your life, of course you look at vegan food brands and feel helpless because a) more expensive and b) you have no control over the ingredients at all, and there’s even bullshittery on the label.
But over here, it’s more like: “I ate oatmeal, I ate a banana, I ate rice with beans, I ate lentil soup, I ate bread with a pea spread…”; it’s more focused on the actual foods. There’s a lot more control over our food because of less reliance on premade products and us throwing stuff together ourselves. And the companies know the customers better and advertise that their soy or oats whatever is from here and any other human or animal rights affecting things. Even vegan restaurants here replace the typical avocado based guacamole with something similar made of peas, for example. So I am just not that familiar with issues around unethical plant foods in my life because it’s easy to avoid that here, which tells me this is a location-based political issue and not an inherent problem to veganism.
I also notice that there’s a certain learned helplessness around food. For example, if I look at product packaging and I am not happy with something, I e-mail them. It’s rare, but it happens. Like, if the vegan alternative you would wanna buy does a shit job at saying where they source their stuff, you can ask and also suggest they put that on the label. You will get an answer and maybe help make a change. Just because that one product doesn’t show where they source their palm oil doesn’t mean you have to shrug and say it’s out of your hands and it somehow says something about veganism itself. Not to mention that the standards for these products can sometimes be kinda ridiculous - because they are vegan or organic or whatever, there are standards applied to them that no one cares about in the standard product. I think if I asked anyone around me if they know where Ferrero sources their palm oil for Nutella, no one can tell me even if it is on the label (Malaysia and Indonesia, by the way).
Anyway, you have to learn to ask and advocate for yourself - I had to do that even before I changed my consumption because I had food sensitivities and almost everyone does a shit job at labeling food. So I just don’t get what the issue is in asking.
I guess what is most annoying is when I serve as a confessional booth. My presence somehow unlocks a stream of confessing animal abuse “sins”. I don’t even say anything and people start talking about meatless Mondays around me and how they tried reducing and where they source everything. Hey, you don’t have to pacify me with that info, veganism hasn’t turned me into environmentalist Batman that will beat you up otherwise. I don’t really understand what the goal is. Do you want reassurance from me or a compliment? If it feels uncomfortable, sit with that, take it up with your conscience that’s rebelling with guilt, not me.
I’m also not a nutritionist or doctor. When people around me have concerns around that, I can’t say anything. Health is a valid line to draw. Medication is life-saving and necessary and most has been tested on animals or still is. My own current medication for my chronic illness is made from murine cells. I’m injecting mice. It is what it is. For me, it would be useless to throw away anything else I can easily do to stop paying for suffering just because of this medication, so nothing else changes for me. An all-or-nothing mindset is not helpful.
I sometimes see people say that there are disabled people who need meat to survive. I would love to learn more about that, but either they refused to elaborate or it was someone entirely else with no disability just parroting that argument without being able to explain, which sucks. On one hand, if you wanna keep it private, that’s your right, and I understand not wanting to reveal it because you’re scared people are gonna give shit advice about the illness and insist it isn’t so. I know it, I have Crohn’s disease and people give shit advice (ha) about it all the time. On the other hand, it’s way too easy to just weaponize that and refusing to elaborate and somehow feeling like you won that argument. Like, it’s okay if you simply don’t wanna change your diet. You can just say it. You don’t need to pretend it’s some other reason (that sounds more noble or is above reproach and cannot be disproven) stopping you if that isn’t the case. No one holds you at gunpoint about the whole thing.
I think that sums up some of my views around it off the top of my head. Probably the most public and vocal about it I have been in years, lol.
Published 16 Oct, 2024, edited 7Â months, 2Â weeks ago
Like when people say that they’ve seen people who say that disabled people should die if it saves animals. Like, come on now. You cannot seriously pretend that this is a widespread view or core belief of veganism. It’s plain old ableism.↩